Editorial: King would be pleased to see day of service

In Sunday's Repository, writer Jenée Desmond-Harris of The Root, an online journal of black America, issued a challenge that we are more than happy to accept:

Don't presume to know what Martin Luther King Jr. would think about "everything that's happening in 2014."

We agree with her: We simply don't know.

The late civil rights leader, whose birth and legacy we celebrate today, had evolving views, as many Americans do. A long time has passed since he dominated the political scene. And the world has changed a great deal since he passed from it.

So we will hazard only the guess that no matter what King would see today, he would say (in words more eloquent than ours): Never stop challenging America to live up to the ideals outlined in her founding documents. And never give up on keeping those ideals alive in your own

life, and serving as an example of them to others.

That latter statement is more than our hope. It is a reality each year on this day.

Martin Luther King Day has become a day of service to others as well as a day of reflection and commemoration. And that, we believe, would please Dr. King, no matter what else he might see.